Chapter 19

"Keep up fleshy!" Skywarp shouted out, before he jumped off the platform into the abyss. This time I knew that he was teasing me. The past six months had been a great improvement for all of us. Not only for my training, but also for the Decepticon cause. Soundwave had managed to send out a long range message which had been received and answered by an ally on Cybertron. This ally, who had been a loyal soldier to Lord Megatron ever since the start of the war, had promised reinforcements to arrive. No one knew any numbers, but judging by the mood of our master they must be thousands.

Everyone was preparing for this event and it was no secret that the arrival of Lord Megatron's long since awaited army would be the beginning of something so great and magnificent, that most of the Decepticons had never dared to dream of. The revival of Cybertron.

Thundercracker raced past me, performed a perfect loop and landed next to me on the platform, his cockpit opening. "Need a lift?"

I nodded with a smile and swung myself into the seat, careful to avoid the sensitive spots on his wings as I climbed up his frame. I had accidentally done so once and he in turn had accidentally transformed. I doubt I need to elaborate on the outcome.

It hadn't taken me long to build up something akin to a friendship with Thundercracker. He would give me lifts whenever Starscream and Skywarp were a considerable distance away and I would fix up his wing problems, since he had a bad habit of getting shot at right on the wings and neither Starscream nor Skywarp could or found any time to quickly rewire and patch up the injury. I was their medic, last resort sniper and of course, their scout. But most often, I was their additional firepower.

Every once in a while Starscream would try and 'have some fun'. On these days he would adjust the system to its highest level. Basically this meant; tons of Autobot drones, individual soldiers and one specific mission. Sometimes it was to retrieve a certain weapon, other times it was to capture a certain mech. This time, in the middle of the half destroyed tri-torus-loop we tried to stealth ourselves into the city of Iacon to assassinate Sentinel Prime.

Attempting tasks like these, of such a difficulty level was even with the seekers nearly impossible. Seekers were very quickly spotted, since Autobot flyers were very rare and tended to be pacifistic ex-Decepticons. So the unfortunately realistic program made sure to let no mistake in an air-maneuver go by unnoticed. Skywarp usually managed to get us out of situations in which we were on the losing end, but warping made too much noise for a stealthy entrance. Starscream had led us under the loop and we followed him in a straight line beneath the metal path. Thundercracker had taken the end of our little caravan and I was turned in my seat to watch their backs. If we could shield our signals, so could they.

It took us a nerve wrecking eternity until Iacon even came into sight and Starscream began to wonder aloud how one of the most secure places on Cybertron could be this easy to enter. He didn't like it when things didn't go according to plan, but he liked it even less when the plan seemed to work flawlessly. No plan ever worked flawlessly, that much he had learned in his time serving under Megatron.

"They'll have detectors all around the city, especially in close proximity and the more refined ones might pick up our signatures. We'll split up once the city is in range and enter from different parts. Skywarp, get as close to the city as possible and warp into it as high above ground as you can. Thundercracker, get Nightbird through the main gate and have her take out the security network while you distract the guards. Take them out if necessary, but do it quietly." He ordered over the . "I'll try it from below ground, through some of the maintenance tunnels. Keep each other posted until we manage to regroup. Go."

And again, feeding our team leader's mistrust, everything worked perfectly. Thundercracker had me climb up the wall in front of the imposing maingate of Iacon at the end of the tri-torus-loop and I managed to sneak around the guards without evoking any attention at all. I had to wait for one of the guards to walk into the security office next to the gate, for the door to open, but once I was inside everything went smoothly. I crawled right under the desk and shot point blank at the computer which dissipated into rust in a matter of seconds. The security guard freaked out and contacted his comrade about a 'technical glitch' which was the understatement of the century, at least in my opinion.

The moment his comrade entered the office, I slipped out the door and contacted Thundercracker to come pick me up. He scooped me up from behind without any kind of warning, except for the graceful thundering of his feet and the earthquake-like movement of the ground as he ran towards me. Like a ninja… not.

"You possess as much grace and stealth as an elephant herd, do you know that?" I complimented him as I leaned back in the cockpit again, enjoying the view of the blue-golden glowing Autobot capital.

"Oh, thank you!" he replied almost immediately, sounding proud and flattered. He had no idea what an elephant was.

"Sure," I muttered back, knowing full well he would just stop talking to me for the next few weeks if I told him what I had meant by that. "…anytime, pal."

"Regroup in front of the senate. Progress there in bi-pedal mode and don't attract attention."Starscream commanded after we reported that we, as well, had managed it into the city without further complications.

"Bi-pedal? What about the fleshy?" Thundercracker asked out of his depth and slightly concerned. On the contrary to Skywarp, his 'nicknames' for me were never meant as insults. He did it out of habit, I guessed. Old habits die hard, they say.

"I dunno. Just put it on your shoulder, shouldn't attract too much attention." Skywarp responded, obviously irritated at either being questioned or confined to bi-pedal mode. He much preferred having the advantage of flight and I couldn't blame him. Flying was awesome, even if I was only in the cockpit. I was still a bit annoyed at his statement however and since I had gained much more confidence in communicating with them, it didn't feel as risky to speak up as it would have felt a couple of months ago.

"I can hear you, you know?"

"Yeah, well then, have him put you on his shoulder."

"…sure."

The crackled offline and Thundercracker let me hop out of his alt mode before he transformed and carefully raised me up to his shoulder plates. He kept his hand lingering there until I had seated myself in between the hollow part of his back that stuck out from his shoulders.

"All good?" he asked, still deciding on whether to remove his hand or not. I had fallen off once before and the seekers had went on training without me. It had left Thundercracker feeling guilty for not having caught me and Skywarp had nearly killed them all by getting a laughing fit that attracted the attention of each and every Autobotin a radius of three klicks.

"All good." I answered and propped a leg up to sit more comfortably. The seeker nodded firmly and walked out into the open, mixing disappearing into the crowd, walking firmly and quickly enough so that the Decepticon insignia on his wings wouldn't be spotted by anyone. I also noticed how he averted looking into other mechs or femmes optics, dimmed them a little and looked at the ground or to the side.

I pressed my back as deeply into the hollowed metal as I could, to avoid curious optics and attention of any kind whatsoever. Some seemed to look our way, but seeing as most of the Autobots inside the city weren't exactly battle material, they either turned away from the towering mech or pretended to ignore him. Thundercracker quickened his pace – the Autobot civilists may not attack them, but they would contact others who were more than capable to.

"Think they're onto us?" I whispered, knowing that this close to his audial, he would likely hear me.

"Certainly." He retorted, but even though I knew we both had the urge to turn around and see if someone was following us, for him to turn around would seem too suspicious and having a tiny alien head poke around from in between his plates would give them any attention they failed to pull upon themselves.

"Think someone is following us already?"

"You there! Halt immediately!" came a gruff voice, amplified through some sort of speaker from behind us. I froze, but Thundercracker started to sprint, shoving mechs and femmes to the side as if they were dolls. I held onto the metal frames around me but since we were going forwards, I wasn't in much danger of falling out.

"Commander, we will be delayed by a bit. We'll catch up." He spoke into his as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and he wasn't just sprinting away from a potential arsenal of law enforcers who didn't just want to bill him.

"Understood."

"Halt or we will initiate fire!" the voice threatened and Thundercracker gave a horse laugh.

"See how many there are, will you?"

I grasped onto the metal firmly and popped my head around the corner. It wasn't hard to make out the pursuers. Two well-armored Autobots with short range guns in one servo. Likely the cybertronian version of police, but surely not heavy battle material either. Due to their lack of actual battle armor, sleeker frames allowed them to move much faster than Thundercracker could, though. They were gaining on us, fast.

Considering that they weren't too far away and that I had only used one shot so far, I shifted and tried to get my upper body to face them. In the end I sat with my legs parted by the metal plate in an attempt to hold myself on his jumping frame. I was lying on my side, trying to get a steadier aim and pointed the gun at the first 'police officer'. For bullets as tiny as mine, they really weren't a hard target, but I didn't manage a particularly good hit on either of them, since Thundercracker was, in fact, moving like a herd of elephants.

"None." I then replied to his earlier question. He skidded to a stop and turned around to look at the dissipating bodies, then turned his head to look at me and back to the remaining rust.

"Slaggit, Nightbird. That was… unexpected."

"You're welcome." I answered, feeling my ego swell not at the fact that I had taken out two very easy targets or without any orders, but from the first time he actually, subconsciously used my name.

When we finally arrived at the senate, Starscream was still there, standing in the shadows of an alleyway. Thundercracker approached him.

"We said we'd catch up."

"Skywarp isn't here yet." Starscream mumbled back, looking around the area, obviously searching for any signs of trouble. He might have appeared like he didn't care, with his arms crossed over his chest and his back leaning against the wall like that, but he was pretty tense. Thundercracker noticed it as well. Like a sparkmates bond, a trine bond could carry emotions as well as thoughts and was designed to have three mechs work together and act as one. But during wartimes, especially in the Decepticon faction, it was practiced that part of the bond or at least the emotions would be dimmed, if not suppressed completely. She knew from observation that this wasn't always the case with the seekers. Anytime one of them was in trouble, the others would let whatever they were doing fall to the ground and rush to their aid, or if they were heavily injured they would linger in or around the med-bay until their trine-mate was fixed. After that, they wouldn't leave each other's side for a couple of days or so. Knock Out and Lord Megatron knew this of course and she had no doubt Soundwave did as well, but the rest of the crew never paid enough attention to the trine to even attempt to try and figure them out.

According to Starscream's and Thundercracker's posture, Skywarp was in trouble. It didn't take long for both of them to space out either. Thundercracker started tapping his foot and Starscream began tapping his fingers. Both of them had dimmed optics and a passive look on their faces, as if they were staring at something miles away. Their wings stood straight upwards and stiff on their back. I knew better than to try and capture their attention, so I tried staying on the lookout for any threats. That was until Thundercrack suddenly brought his arms up to clutch at his chest, simultaneously with Starscream and both Cons fell to their knees, their mouths opened in silent screams. The sudden impact caught me off guard and I fell out of my neat sitting area face first into the ground.

I woke up with something akin to a suppressed whimper and found myself in my usual corner. This time, I wasn't the first one. Skywarp was already sitting upright, his face buried in his hands and Thundercracker and Starscream had just shot upwards.

"Never order me to teleport into Iacon, ever again." Skywarp laughed slightly hysterical and I wondered what had happened to him in there. But something told me to not piss him off any more than he already was.

Starscream responded with a similarly shocked laugh but stopped short when his optics dimmed once more. A .

"Nightbird, you should report to the command center. Lord Megatron requests your presence." he said with a sudden seriousness in his tone. I nodded, disconnected the cable and handed it to Skywarps awaiting hand. It was his turn with the set up and clean up.

But on the contrary to what I had expected, what awaited me in the command center were rather good news. I was finally allowed to participate in another mission. Even if it was only reconnaissance, but at least it was a mission. And with Ravage as my partner!

We were to infiltrate an army base, or at least get close enough to it, and gather as much intel as possible from intercepting their frequencies. But it was of great importance that we remained unspotted. I had no information on what kind of intel we were supposed to gather, or what kind of base it was, whether there were Autobots involved or only humans and also not where it was located. Although judging by the clothing Knock Out had forced on me – a thick winter parka with a furry hood, snow pants and boots, gloves and a scarf to cover my face with -, it would probably be some place cold.

And it was. I had made the mistake of having my hood down when I entered the space bridge portal. The chilly breeze that blew a few snowflakes in our direction when we were still inside the bridge was easy to handle. I could have stood through it with my hood down, probably also with my parka opened, but I wasn't prepared for the freezing cold that hit me head on as soon as I jumped out of the bridge. It surprised me so much that I yelped, turned around and jumped back into the bridge, to Ravages surprise. As soon as I had covered my mouth, nose and ears with the scarf and had pulled and secured the hood over my head, I jumped out again. The wind still burned in my eyes and I had to blink several times to get used to the difference between the barely lit warship and the field of snow that seemed to be out to direct every little ray of sunlight into my eyes. I hissed and covered them for a few seconds longer.

A low growling forced me to remove the gracious darkness from my eyes and force them to adjust to the white and white of my surroundings. Ravage and I were both the only real contrast, two black dots on white. I found it to be quite unpractical, since we were easily spotted this way, but Knock out must have had his reasons. He always did, even if sometimes they were of purely fashionable interest.

Ignoring the hissing sounds he made, I grabbed Ravage's tail and tried to follow him blindly. The good thing about this situation was that at least there wouldn't be any trees I could walk into or any stones I could trip over.

When my eyes had finally grown used to the light, I stopped short and looked around with my mouth wide open under the scarf. Wide fields of white interrupted by small pointy hills of ice covered with a thin blanket of snow spread into the distance and seemed to melt in one with the sky. An ever blowing wind helped countless of snowflakes to dance through the air, some in circles, some in loops, others in complicated choreographies until they came to rest on the ground, only to be helped up again by the next breeze.

"Woah." I breathed out in awe, absentmindedly clutching tighter to the tail Ravage tried to free by twitching and pulling. Only his exasperate growling brought me back and I teasingly pulled until he bared his fangs at me. Lifting my hands in a surrendering gesture, I let go and walked past him with a smirk hidden beneath my scarf.

"Hey, there. Calm down, we've got a job to do, remember?"

"…"

I had to laugh at his scolding glare, fearing I would freeze to death if I ceased moving. My eyes were hurting already and my scarf, damp from the warm breath, was starting to freeze as well. I didn't dare ask to return to the warship. Decepticons do not run from rough circumstances. We were born in rough circumstances and a wasteland of ice was not even to be considered rough, when you saw the gladiator-pits and the mines next to it.

Ravage led me through the snow until the wind grew windier, the cold colder and the snow denser. Both of us were crouched low, fighting against the storm and when Ravage stopped I looked up and couldn't tell the earth from the sky. Searching, scanning through advanced eyes my companion slowly turned his head from side to side. The contrast of his black armor between the snow was all that kept me from losing him. Primus bless Knock Out! I suppressed the urge to grab Ravages tail and wrap it around my arm or waist out of fear of losing him.

What had been merely an hour felt like an eternity already. The fur of my hood was white, so was most of my jacket my scarf and my eyebrows. My toes felt like they would freeze off; I had lost all feeling in them, similar with my fingers and every single step hurt more but I could pull through. I would pull through. Decepticons always pull through.

"Any idea where the signals coming from?" I shouted over the wind, the slight cocking of Ravage's head being the only indication he had heard that I had spoken. "It's too weak for my liking. I thought they'd bridged us close by?"

Ravage turned his head, looked at me, then looked down and kept on walking. He wasn't in a much better state than me, either. His armor was covered in ice crystals and his joints were starting to freeze, movement being the only thing that kept them from doing so. A Decepticon his size, even with armor as strong as his, wouldn't be able to withstand this forever. Longer than me, surely, but even Cybertronians had their limits. So why by the pits would Lord Megatron send us on a mission like this for that long, if there was such a large possibility that we'd fail him?

Oh.

"R-ravage?" I whispered, grabbing his tail to keep him from moving.

"Did you know about this?" He pulled forward and my right sleeve tore.

"Is there even a mission, Ravage?" I needed to jog after him to keep up.

"Is there even a base?!" There was a raising of ice under the snow and I tripped and fell. The snow reached into my jacket and I hissed at the freezing cold.

"Answer me!"

He didn't stop and didn't answer, but the tail wrapping around my wrist was all I needed for comfort. It could have been better, that's for sure, but I would take all I could get and this was, at the moment, everything. The tingling numbness in my toes and fingers slowly spread. It didn't stop me from keeping on. If Ravage didn't know there was a base, he wouldn't keep going and Soundwave would never have left him. I liked to think that he would not have left me either, but this whole situation had made me averse to wishful thinking.

After only a few minutes more I started to clutch my arm and try to prevent the cold from coming that near to me. A sob escaped me as I tumbled, fell to my knees and forced myself back up. I didn't want anymore, I couldn't go further, it was so cold, I was so hungry and so tired. But every time I fell, Ravage pulled me up and his tail around my arm felt like a lifeline. Then suddenly, he stopped pulling me up. Just stood and stared and when I scrambled forward to see what it was he was staring at, I could have cried tears of joy.

The base. Red lights and green lights and a wonderful, huge silhouette that looked so wee in the snowstorm. Ravage turned around and pulled me towards a jut to shield us from the wind. He lay down on the snow and I leaned against him, hugging my arm against my chest and breathing out softly.

"Okay, intercept their radiowave communication." I whispered and stared out into the white.

"… frequent, but easily fixed, so I doubt that it would cause much of a problem 'til Tanner's back. – Y'think so? I mean, I dunno, but if we stop th'excavation now there'll be loads o' trouble from up top, y'know. – We can't let it running though, it might get broken beyond repair! – They do that? – I don't know, how am I supposed to know. Tanner's responsible for them. I'm just the metallurgist!- Pfft, yeah right…"

"Wait! Metallurgist? This is an excavation side? Does Lord Megatron know this?" I asked, agitatedly. Finally, something to cling on to! And I was only strengthened in faith as he shook his head against my shoulder.

"… nything else? Man, I can't tell you how much I miss strawberries right now. Or raspberries! Something that's not been packed for the past few months…" And so the radiowaves turned from something interesting into a rambling about food and stuff they missed and wouldn't receive until they were back home. After a few minutes of silence between us – my eyelids became heavier per second – I decided to start up a more interesting conversation. I wanted a few answers or at least someone to lay my theories upon.

"Did Soundwave tell you what Lord Megatron ordered Dreadwing?"

Ravage turned his head to look at me, his big red optics trained on my expression. Apparently not.

"He's supposed to wear me out, I think. 'test my limits' like Lord Megatron put it, but it's never just that, is it? I'm not stupid. Sure, I may not know what's going on all the time, but I figured our Leader out, at least to a certain degree. He would have no problem sacrificing me in return for minor scientific progress. But what would he need it for, Ravage? Humans are of no use to him! The technology on this planet is prehistoric and the beings are weak, barely worth noticing for the race of Cybertronians. We wouldn't even have glanced this way, if it were still the golden age and that was back when we were searching for inhabited planets!"

His mouthplates suddenly formed a toothy grin and he rested his head on my chest, curling his body around mine. I wanted to lift my arm to stroke his head, but it tingled too much when I tried to move it, so I simply nuzzled my covered mouth into the nape of his neck.

I wasn't sure when exactly my shivering started, but I could barely keep my upper body from moving now. My teeth were constantly clattering against each other and it felt like every muscle in my body was tense enough to tear. There hadn't been another piece of information yet and the only reason I hadn't said anything was because I knew we couldn't just return empty handed. But the longer I lay here thinking I noticed something. For instance, my brain seemed to run slower and I was getting alarmingly tired. On top of that, I could neither move my feet nor my hands or my complete right arm. They were just tingly, motionless lumps of flesh. In a short moment of panic I jerked and caused Ravage to lift his head from its place on my chest.

"D-d-do y-ou kn-know if we c-c-c… if w-we c-could g-g-go y-yet? I c-can't feel my l-l-l-limbs any-m-m-more." I stuttered and bit my tongue a few times in the process of forcing out those few words. The people inside the hidden base were still rambling about food and Christmas, one of them complaining about wanting a turkey on Christmas eve when he would return to his family.

I ignored Ravages constant poking at my shoulder. Rather, I thought about the Christmases with Dad, when he, my foster parents and I had had Christmas dinner. The smell of the feast, the many candles all around the house and the presents under the big tree. I remembered how I bounced around the house with four, five years, clutching his hand tightly and pulling him towards the presents after he'd had to 'stand guard' next to the tree to see if Santa would come. Year for year I had asked him to wake me up, so that I could see the reindeers and the big, round man in his red coat. First his excuses had either been that he had been asleep or that Santa had been there, but had been gone so quickly again since there were other children in the world who needed their presents which he then evaluated with a very scientific and by far too complicated explanation just to make me keep believe. In primary school, when the rumor had gone around that Santa was just a story made up by the parents he had actually changed his holoform to tell me to keep believing what I knew to be true and to let nobody alter my mind about anything. He then proceeded to bury me under enormous amounts of chocolates and various other sweets and I was the last child in my grade to stop believing in Santa. Knock Out had never admitted to tricking me, though.

I fell asleep wondering about how we would celebrate this Christmas.

Ravage Third POV

Her core temperature had decreased drastically, Ravage hadn't wasted much thought on it though. At least not until she had asked him if they could leave without sufficient information. Of course they couldn't. Not only would Lord Megatron be displeased with them, he would lose interest in Nightbird and see her as a burden. If Megatron ordered him to dispose of her, he didn't know what he would do. He couldn't defy his orders, but killing this fragile creature that was trying with all its limited power to be one of them, killing her was unthinkable.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do without endangering one of them, so instead he focused on the radio conversation and on keeping her awake. If she were to fall into an emergency stasis now her core temperature might fall low enough to trigger a permanent offlining. And as if Primus wished ill on him; that was exactly what she did.

No poking her with his nose or shaking her with the help of his tail would get her to wake up again. In a moment of sheer panic, his processor decided that directing the heat in her body to her organs and her head was the most important thing right now. So he turned her body around and sliced the thick layers of clothing around her chest open, at the same time as he opened his own chest plates and pressed her close to his spark. On one side he listened for the conversation in the background, on the other he concentrated on their heart beats as their rhythms picked up speed and slowed down all at once. They seemed to circle around each other and he could feel her, feel the blood in her body, feel her dying appendages and the freezing cold all around her.

He seemed to reach in and pull the blood from her limbs, directing the pulsing hot flow to her chest and head while he cradled her close.

"... found out anything about the structure yet?"

It wasn't like his bond with Laserbeak or Frenzy or Soundwave. It was much weaker, much more… tender. Like it could rip any moment.

"Not really, no. 's some sort of metal tha' stretches almost all th'way 'round this excavation side. I don't even know how deep it reaches, but it's like nothin' I've ever seen before!"

It coulnd't transmit thoughts or feelings, just this steady thrumming of her heart. Almost as if sensing a presence near by, but not quite being able to touch it.

" There hasn't been any surface like this on earth before. Scientifically, it's inexplicable! Th'way the metal covers the ice suggests an extensively wide radius for some sorta explosion. Like a shockwave out of pure metal."

Was this it? Was this the information he needed? If it were cybertronium, the thick layer of ice could have shielded it from their scanners! The only free place would be the excavation side, where they had picked up a strange signal.

Noticing how Nightbird's body had gone completely limp, Ravage decided it was enough and called for a bridge. The drones had to come and carry them both back inside, since neither his nor her limbs were functional anymore.